VirtualAgility and Plansafe Partner to Provide Government, Intelligence and Commercial Organizations with All-Inclusive Disaster Planning and Manageme

Boston/Munich (PRWEB) August 6, 2007 -- Organizations increasingly recognize that much more than paper plans and ad hoc responses are needed to succeed in managing the entire emergency response continuum. VOC represents an entirely new way forward. With VOC, managers can turn static, paper-based plans into flexible, dynamic planning environments. Unlike traditional planning that restricts response to what has been anticipated in advance, plans created within VOC can be reconfigured on-the-fly to meet unexpected contingencies, transmitted to participants instantly and updated whenever necessary. In short, VOC brings the first utterly realistic approach to the plan/prepare/respond/recover cycle. Both VirtualAgility (http://www.virtualagility.com) and Plansafe (http://www.plansafe.net/index.php?id=91&L=1%5C%5C%5C%22) have recently worked with IBM on emergency management challenges.

Now, VirtualAgility will supply a common operating platform to support full cross-agency interoperability. VOC is robust, field-proven and requires little training for end users. The use of IBM middleware solutions to support VOC means that managers can quickly incorporate the most heterogeneous combination of data and applications without compromising proprietary assets. VirtualAgility open standards technology infrastructure connects incompatible systems, preserves the integrity of proprietary databases and streamlines personnel identification, location and communication.

Initially, Plansafe consults with VOC clients first to map requirements and prepare documents detailing the systems, data and user groups involved.; second, to provide configuration services for optimizing the system's value; third, to help users with implementation support that includes orientation, exercises, simulations and improved operations. Plansafe experts in emergency management will facilitate plan development and deployment, building in best practices gleaned from decades of experience. Plansafe consultants can also analyze an organization's operating processes, translate them into visible, intuitive protocols and make them available to planners and responders via a central virtual operations center.

Paradoxically, the comprehensive VirtualAgility/Plansafe virtual OPS Center solution is an order of magnitude less expensive than systems that do far less. And it can be deployed in a fraction of the time, without the usual battalions of IT support.

In summary, VirtualAgility and Plansafe have set a new standard for addressing the challenges of the entire the emergency response continuum. For the first time, disparate organizations can plan, exercise, capture lessons learned, respond and recover using a single web-based architecture environment. Working with VOC, managers can easily coordinate, collaborate and share information and resources across any boundary, while leaving control and management of source data at the source. Drawing on Plansafe's expertise, users can create, define and deploy better and more adaptable operational plans, and work together more effectively in a crisis.

In an era when crises can take almost any form of man-made or natural disaster, the power, flexibility and comprehensive services of the VirtualAgility/Plansafe VOC solution are indispensable.

Who Should Be Looking Into VOC?

- Government Agencies from federal to regional to local

- Large Private Sector Organizations

- Military and Intelligence Agencies

What Does VOC Enable Managers to Achieve?

- Critical Infrastructure & Civil Protection

- Homeland Security

- Disaster Management & Environmental Protection

- Customs, Ports and Borders Security

- Forensic Operations

- Operational Risk Management

- Disaster/Emergency Management and Business Continuity

- Pandemic Preparedness

About Plansafe

Plansafe is an emergency management consultancy and the developer of the emergency response architecture (EMA?), a tool that creates a model of any organizations ability to respond to an emergency, the factors that influence its risk environment and how it can move forward to address these dynamic challenges.

About VirtualAgility

Virtual Agility is the developer of interactive virtual "work centers" that are based on the feedback of multiple levels of executives and managers in over 60 global 1000 companies. VirtualAgility WorkCenters and OPS Centers are designed to simplify and share the ad hoc processes that are needed to respond to rapidly changing environments enabling dispersed groups to interactively solve complex problems across the boundaries of corporations and governments.

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